Monday, 4 April 2011

More seeds planted today

I eventually got to the garden centre today and bought some more seed compost. I am not confident enough to start mixing my own recipe yet. I bought some New Horizons peat free seed compost, some lime for where the brassicas are going and some tomato seeds. I was going to buy some tomato plants but they seemed so ropey that I was very reluctant to get them. I forgot to buy some more charcoal for my Terra preta experiment. I will get some in due course.

I planted some more mange tout peas, some cucumbers, squashes and maize. They are still in the greenhouse. I sowed the tomatoes and okra in 3 inch pots and bought them into the house. They will be kept by the central heating until they germinate.

I bought in the plastic labels that I took out of the sweet pea pots and gave them a good wash. If you do them a small number at a time you get through them all and you do not get fed up doing it. Although I am keen on making sure that my plants encounter micro organisms as soon as possible after they have germinated, I see no reason to subject them to pathogens unnecessarily. I tend to wash my pots, trays and labels before I use them again for other plants or seeds. It was something that the Victorian gardeners used to do in order to keep pests and diseases at bay. If it worked for them I will give it a try.

If I get any time tomorrow then I will begin to plant my runner beans. It might be a little early for some of these things but if I can keep tomatoes on the go since February then I think that these new sowings will be all right.

The lettuce is nearly big enough to go out in the allotment but I am not going to plant them out until I have watered the planting area with anti slug and snail nematodes. I was taking slugs off the allotment over the weekend and leaving them on the car park for the birds to find. I have ordered the Nemaslug but it has not arrived yet. As soon as it does I will be down the allotment putting it on. The soil temperature was a balmy 10oC at the weekend so this is more than warm enough for the nematodes.

I was going to plant the pumpkins, however they will not be needed until the onions have finished around August time. I may sow them now and keep them in pots until I have the space to plant them out in the summer. Container grown pumpkins will transplant fairly well like this but I doubt that I will get very big ones. I could fill the compost bins with compost from Fred's mega compost heap and grow them in the compost bin like I did last year. They didn't really do very well though so I am reluctant to do it again.

I still need to plant my salad leaves in pots in the greenhouse. I want to do this so that I can get them whenever I want them. If I plant them down the allotment, it is a chore to go and get them just for a salad. Planting them in large pots was successful last year and I could cut and they would come again just like it says in the books. Well sometimes these experts get it right Tony.